To Our Users: A Community Update

In the past couple months there have been a lot of changes at PressureNet as we’ve focused on becoming a profitable weather company. Today we want to talk to you about the journey that’s brought PressureNet to this point and share with you our vision for the future of this company, the app, and the community we’ve built together. THE SHORT VERSION If you don’t have time to go on a grand journey with us, the short version is that we have

Announcing the PressureNet Developer Program

Press Release We’re pleased to announce our PressureNet Developer Program, where we are inviting mobile app developers to work with us on building our next-generation weather network – Apply now! Most smartphones now have built-in barometers, which could enable all apps to collectively measure and predict the weather! This new source of atmosphere data could provide a revolution in accurate weather forecasting, and app developers are playing a key role in kickstarting this revolution. We’ve been building the tools to make this

PressureNet: 3 Years Later

PressureNet turns 3 years old today! We initially launched version 1.0 to the Play Store on October 8, 2011 – Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. And as we approach this year’s celebrations, we’ve released a significant update to PressureNet to mark this anniversary. This new update dramatically improves our weather alerts – when you report your local weather conditions, fellow PressureNet users are notified. This peer-to-peer system is producing more accurate weather notifications than existing stations! We’ve come a long way in the

Typhoon Neoguri

Typhoon Neoguri/Florita has been the most severe pacific storm of the 2014 season so far. It caused seven deaths and at least fifty more serious injuries, as well as leaving a trail of damage to both the human and natural landscape. Before developing into a full-blown typhoon, Neoguri/Florita passed by Guam as a tropical storm. According to the data recorded by PressureNet users in the area, the average pressure dropped approximately 6 millibars over the course of 3 days: As the storm

Hurricane Arthur

Thanks to PressureNet users in North Carolina we were able to record the drastic drop in pressure as Hurricane Arthur made landfall over the coast on Thursday night: PressureNet gathers crowdsourced atmospheric pressure readings from barometers embedded in Android phones and makes the data available to meteorologists and researchers who are working towards improved weather forecasting. One such scientist is Cliff Mass, who runs an excellent blog on weather research. Thank you to our users for helping us collect this exciting data.

Weathering the Future with New Technologies

It would be naive to assume that everyone really cares about the changing climate. Of course, some have to, like the Midwest US who literally live and die by the weather. And as global warming advances, that weather is increasingly severe. Really, though, many people are concerned about weather trends only insofar as it presses against their bubble, affecting their daily plans and routines. Luckily, there’s currently a boom in sensor hardware. Many of these new products cater to those

PressureNet adds extreme weather alerts to 4.4 update

Frequent extreme weather events are increasingly impacting cities and towns globally. Unfortunately, there are many areas that can’t disseminate vital weather/disaster information at the speed needed to give proper warning. In response to recent tornadoes, wildfires, and floods around the world we’ve implemented a new severe weather reporting section in our existing current conditions feature. This will enable users to submit tornado, dust storm, tropical storm, wildfire, and flash flooding conditions. You can participate by downloading the PressureNet update on

#TrendingScience: Transforming Citizens into Scientists

The term “citizen science” is relatively new to our vernacular, but the concept has been in practice for many centuries. Some of the most important scientists in our history fit into that role, with Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin being prominent examples. There is also a rich history of citizen science occurring in astronomy, where the primary observation tool is simple and reproducible: the telescope. Wealthy enough to support themselves, they worked independently from academic institutes, setting their own schedules

Mobile Weather Sensor Forecast: Lookin’ Bright

“Will there be a thunderstorm today?” is the big question I set out to solve when I started PressureNet. During Canadian summers in Quebec and Ontario, where my cofounder Phil and I lived, the answer is usually “who knows?”. The local weather reports would say things like “30% chance of a thunderstorm this afternoon”. But the problem is, “this afternoon” spans about 4 hours, and “30% chance” means that it probably won’t happen – but maybe it will? This kind